Maxim machine gun

“ While inferior in this respect, it is nevertheless the fact that the Maxim has proved itself in the field even in savage warfare in the roughest country to be a very efficient and powerful weapon.
The great difficulty which has to be met in all single-barrel machine guns is the heating of the barrel. The 71/2 pints of water in the water-jacket of the Maxim gun are raised to boiling point by 600 rounds of rapid fire—i.e. in about 11/2 minutes—and if firing be continued, about 11/2 pints of water are evaporated for every 1000 rounds. ”

“ There are several other types of machine guns, but the most ingenious, and perhaps the most effective, is the Maxim automatic gun. This has a single barrel, about two thirds of which, from the muzzle towards the breech, is surrounded by a water-jacket into which water is automatically injected at each discharge, thus rendering overheating impossible. The mechanism for operating the gun is at the breech, covering the remaining third of the barrel. All that is necessary is to draw back the trigger to fire the first shot ”

“ Napoleon’s maxim, that “fire is everything—the rest is of small account,” is only applicable to the machine gun when the fire is effective. Nothing is so useless and wasteful as ineffective machine-gun fire, and the careful study of fire effect and how to obtain the best results is imperative with this weapon. The principles so ably stated in Colonel Mayne’s excellent book, The Infantry Weapon and its Use in War, apply almost equally to machine guns, and should be carefully studied by machine gunners, particularly those chapters dealing with the employment of fire in the field. ”

“ In the modern “automatic” machine-gun, moreover, the loading, firing, extracting and ejecting are all performed automatically by the gun itself, either by the recoil of its barrel, or by a small portion of the gases of explosion being allowed to escape through a minute hole in the barrel near the muzzle. The following details of the British Maxim, Hotchkiss and Colt types are reproduced from the article “Machine-guns,” Ency. ”

“ America can justly claim the honor of inventing and developing the machine-gun, although Hiram Maxim did give up his American citizenship and become a British subject. By the way, he is not to be confused with his younger brother, Hudson Maxim, the inventor of high explosives, who has always been an American to the core. Of course we must not get the impression that only Americans have invented machine-guns. ”

“ The Maxim gun can easily fire ten shots a second, and if every man at the piece were killed the moment the first shot was fired the gun would keep on until it fired at least 332 more shots.
306 The Gatling, Gardner, Maxim, and similar guns are known as machine guns. Of the same general family, so to speak, are rapid-fire guns, which are, however, distinguished from machine guns by having a larger calibre, loading by hand, having only one barrel, and being provided with artificial means of checking recoil and returning the piece to the firing position. ”

“ Sometimes, dynamite will work all right for such a purpose, but it is notional stuff and can not be depended upon merely to burn. It was during one of these intervals of independability that Jeopardy went.
[59]
THE INVOLUNTARY ATTACK
Soon after the invention of the Maxim automatic machine gun, I took the American agency for the introduction of the weapon to the United States Government. Among the tests that were conducted with the gun at Sandy Hook was one known as the sand test, sand being sifted into the mechanism of the gun, which was then loaded and fired. ”

“ They may also be used to reinforce threatened points, when their mobility will enable them to arrive at a distant part of the battlefield with the rapidity of cavalry. They should rarely be used in the firing line, where their fire, being dispersed, is less effective than an equal volume of rifle fire, and where they are at once the target for every rifle. Machine guns can never engage artillery, and should avoid engaging other machine guns or firing on a line of skirmishers. ”

“ When, however, concealment and protection from fire exist, it may sometimes be advisable to bring machine guns into action at decisive range. If a sufficiently large target be offered and the range be known, the concentration and rapidity of their fire will enable guns to be employed, with considerable effect, at long ranges. Machine guns should seldom engage artillery at long rifle range, for in such circumstances superiority of fire will always rest with the latter if the machines are located. ”

“ Within effective range, however, machine guns, if concealed, should inflict considerable loss on hostile artillery. Engagements with their lines of skirmishers should be avoided, for the risk of disclosing the position of the guns and the heavy expenditure of ammunition involved will rarely be justified by results. Since the gun is not well adapted for keeping up protracted fire, it may be often expedient to withdraw it from action, move it elsewhere, or hold it in reserve for a more favourable opportunity. ”

“ The difference between the machine-gun fire and rifle fire is something like the difference between hitting a tin can with a stone or with a stream of water. It is no easy matter to score a hit with the stone; but any one can train a garden hose on the can, because he can see where the water is striking and move his hose accordingly until he covers the desired spot. In the same way, with the machine-gun, it is much easier to train the stream of bullets upon the mark, and, having once found the mark, to hold the aim. That is one reason why the destruction of a machine-gun is so tremendous ”

“ The effective range of machine guns is the same as that of the rifle; they are therefore not suited for employment in place of artillery. On the other hand, the effect of machine-gun [238] fire at effective infantry and close infantry ranges is very great, and at close infantry ranges it may, with favourable conditions, be annihilating. Machine guns are very suitable for the development of covering fire within the limits of effective rifle range. They can accompany the troops to which they may be attached over any country. ”

“ In dealing with machine-gun tactics in small wars, it is obviously impossible to treat with all the situations that may be met with or to attempt to lay down definite rules for their use under all the varying conditions of country, race, and arms before mentioned. It will therefore be sufficient for our purpose to show how machine guns may be used generally in warfare in uncivilised countries, and then to take a single typical campaign to illustrate their employment.
“Against an enemy who fights outside stockades, machine guns are very efficacious ”

“ If machine guns are to engage artillery, the sleighs must be brought as near as possible to it. The rapidity of movement of machine guns due to their being horsed will enable them to start the action from a flank, and thus produce a sensible increase of effect. Scattering the fire from all the machine guns along the entire line of a battery is as useless as it is purposeless. ”

“ On the other hand, when these principles were neglected or ignored, the machine guns merely wasted ammunition and were impotent to affect the situation. The lesson to be learned is this: that machine guns are only useful when their tactical handling is thoroughly understood, and then their effect is more decisive than that of any other arm. ”

“ The selection of the positions for machine guns in permanent works belongs to the art of the engineer, and there is little that can be said of their tactical employment. Fire should be reserved until the attack has reached close range, and then only opened when the target is large and vulnerable. Guns must be concealed by every possible device and all the loopholes must be blinded. By night all guns should be mounted and trained to sweep ground by which the enemy must approach ”

“ The trouble with us is that we have not, and never have had, any machine gunners in the United States Army. By this I mean men skilled in machine gunnery as applied to present-day warfare. The evolution of machine-gun tactics is, perhaps, (p. 095) the most outstanding feature of the whole war. From being, as it was considered four years ago, merely an emergency weapon or, as the text-book writers were pleased to call it, "a weapon of opportunity," it has become the most important single weapon in use in any army, not even excepting the artillery. ”

“ MACHINE GUNS IN AIRCRAFT
Various attempts have been made to mount machine guns on aeroplanes, but the operator, in his narrow seat, has hardly space to point a machine gun in any direction except straight to his front. The American Curtis machine gun exhibited at Olympia is the most efficient form yet produced, but at present the airman seems to prefer an automatic rifle. Even in the early days of the war, Sir John French was able to report that British airmen had disposed of no less than five of the enemy’s aircraft with this weapon. ”

“ Having machine guns in position against him, it might be advisable to choose the latter course, because machine guns are less effective against a skirmishing line of attackers, while his own machine guns are more effective if they can gain the flank or rear of the enemy’s position and thus enfilade them, and any movement of mounted troops to [72] repulse the turning movement, or take their attackers in flank, will afford the machine guns an opportunity for decisive fire action. ”

“ A small part of the gas generated by the explosion of the individual cartridge operates the mechanism, discharging the bullet, throwing out the empty shell and making ready for the next shot.
A machine gun is designed to enable one man to fire the equivalent of a volley, or series of volleys, discharged by an entire platoon (one-third of a company) of infantrymen. As at present developed, it represents a step toward the evolution of a shoulder-rifle that will throw a continuous stream of bullets. ”

“ Machine guns are primarily weapons of defence. In attack they can only be employed under very favourable conditions, and then strengthen only one factor of a successful attack—the fire-strength—while they may sometimes hinder that impetuous forward rush which is the soul of every attack. Hence, this auxiliary weapon should be given to the infantry in limited numbers, and employed mainly on the defensive fronts, and should be often massed into large units. Machine-gun detachments should not overburden the marching columns. ”

“ Machine guns are used as batteries, but may be broken up into sections or even single guns. It is thought wrong to employ “slow” fire, and 800 yards is considered the most useful range. Well-hidden lines of skirmishers and other machine guns are unsuitable targets, and they are never to be used to replace artillery or to fire at artillery at long range, though they may do so at close range or from the flanks or rear. Concealed positions are recommended, and the use of alternative positions advocated, and change of position should be made on the initiative of the commander. ”

“ When machine guns have been skilfully employed, their action has been infinitely more effective than that of field artillery, more especially when they fire at infantry ranges.” The following is an example of their actual use in this way. “The Japanese,” says a Russian eye-witness of the fighting round Mukden, “brought up during the night dozens of machine guns with hundreds of thousands of cartridges to their front line of skirmishers, from 400 to 500 yards from our positions, and entrenched them there. ”

“ If a position affording concealment is not available, one should be selected which from the nature of its background will be difficult for the enemy to locate. As the opportunities for the effective action of machine guns will often be very brief, and as the guns will usually be employed singly, the non-commissioned officer in charge of each gun will, as a rule, have to act on his own initiative in choosing the objective, judging the range, and in deciding when to open fire. As a general rule, machine guns are best adapted for action at effective ranges ”

“ Machine guns should as a rule only open fire upon targets which are sufficiently large and dense to promise an adequate return for the ammunition expended. Special circumstances may, however, warrant the opening of fire upon less favourable targets. When a machine-gun commander has decided to open fire, the ammunition necessary to secure the results sought should be expended without hesitation. ”

“ In no phase of modern war are machine guns so valuable as during a retreat, and it is quite probable that, properly organised and handled, they may make the pursuit so difficult and costly as to render the retreat a far less dangerous undertaking than it has been in the past. It is not difficult to realise that an arm possessing such great mobility, together with rapidity and concentration of fire, before which no closed bodies can exist at effective range, will be able not merely to check and delay pursuing cavalry, but may even prevent any effective pursuit by mounted men alone. ”

“ The choice of the position will depend upon the nature of the country and the features favourable to delaying the enemy, but it may be laid down that the machine guns should not be placed in one line, but should be broken up as much as possible, so that no two guns are at the same range. In the same way, guns placed in well-concealed positions on the lower slopes of hills should have the other guns of their sections higher up, where they can command a wide extent of country and at the same time cover the retirement of the guns below. ”